A Study on Performativity of Korean Immersive Theatre -focused on the play 《Ansan Pilgrimage Road》-

초록

Immersive theatre, which has been actively produced in the Western theatrical world since the 2000s, began to be produced in Korea in the 2010s and has been the subject of academic research. However, since most of the studies are limited to analyzing the phenomenon of immersive theatre, this study aims to study Korean immersive theatre in more detail by applying ‘performativity theory.’ Before diving in, we looked at the meaning of the term ‘immersive’ and its origins in the theatrical world. This was followed by an consideration of ‘performativity centered on John Austin’s philosophy of language, Judith Butler’s theory of gender, and Erika Fischer-Lichte’s theory of aesthetics. What they have in common is that performativity is ‘self-referential’ and ‘reality-constitutive’ and ultimately encompasses a range of oppositional elements. Then, based on the previous research, an analysis of the Korean immersive play 《Ansan Pilgrimage Road》 was conducted. The first prominent feature of immersive theater is the transformation of the ‘audience’: their increased mobility, autonomy, and activism elevates them to ‘co-subjects’ and ‘co-producers.’ In this play, the audience’s ‘role reversal’ by taking an equal position with the actors, which created a ‘autopoietic feedback loop’ that made the performance unpredictable. The second characteristic of immersive theater that we’ve noticed is ‘multi-sensory.’ By stimulating the audience’s sense of touch and smell in addition to sight and hearing, 《Ansan Pilgrimage Road》 made the audience ‘participate’ and ‘experience’ the play instead of just watching and understanding it. In addition, 《Ansan Pilgrimage Road》 does not rely on actors’ dialogues and performances, but rather enhances sensory stimulation, allowing the audience to experience the phenomenon of ‘emergence’ of meaning. Through the above research, we can see that the Korean immersive play 《Ansan Pilgrimage Road》 has a number of performative elements, and it has the character of a post-dramatic theatre, which is different from conventional realistic theatre. Although this study was limited to a single play, we hope that it will provide a small contribution to future studies of immersive theatre.

키워드